7 Traits of a Successful Entrepreneur

“As an early stage investor, we invest in team and it is the most important criteria for our selection” says Parag Dhol, MD, Inventus India, while delivering the keynote at TearDown May2018. Inventus capital has invested in successful startups like redBus, PolicyBazaar, Unbxd and MoveInSync.

While delivering his keynote on his Philosophical Take on entrepreneurship, he lists down Seven neatly packaged straits that makes a successful founding team.

Creativity:

Creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence (Osho). This statement is also very true in an entrepreneurial journey. Creativity is a solution oriented process. To run a successful enterprise, you can’t just think logically and mathematically. It is also important to stimulate the right side of the brain, i.e, the creative side of you. Creativity helps in identifying opportunities. When going gets tough, it helps in finding solutions. Entrepreneurs have to be a bottomless pit of creativity. Creative thinking is the must have “skill” of an entrepreneur for the creation of new ideas. It allows a person to devise interesting processes, and in doing so provides entrepreneurial advantages.

Passion:

Have you ever wondered how Elon musk knows so much about space? It’s because he read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica when he was only 9. He is known for reading 10 hours a day. Elon has stated numerous times that two of his lifelong goals are to help mankind hedge risks by becoming a multi-planetary species (SpaceX), and to help develop renewable energy sources (Tesla and SolarCity). Hefty goals, but goals he seems to believe passionately in. And it is only this passion that has made him so successful in his field.

Picture Courtesy: yourstory

Passion, undoubtedly, is the chief driver of successful entrepreneurship anywhere in the world. Being a triumphal businessperson is a struggle, but without passion, that struggle will always remain a struggle. Passion is the best entrepreneurial painkiller. Business owners must be passionate while pitching to investors; selling to customers or hiring new employees. If you don’t love what you’re selling, how can anybody else? Passion is one of those intangibles that drives an entrepreneur, gets them through the good times and bad, and ultimately dictates the success of any startup. Passion can therefore be a differentiating factor between a startup’s success and failure. Of course passion alone is not enough, but not many people become successful without that internal drive.

Storytelling:

Do you want to know how to make your brand/startup relatable to both investors and customers alike? By using storytelling, of course! As an entrepreneur, storytelling can connect you with friends, colleagues, investors and clients on a deeper level. Be open to sharing your story whenever and wherever you can. All the formats are welcome, be it podcast, video, speech, panel or blog. Just tell your story the way you want to!

Stories are how we connect and learn from each other. We think and act through stories. They register in our minds more easily, and are more powerful than frameworks, lectures, books, or articles says Prof. Suresh of NSRCEL @ IIMB. He emphasizes this point by giving an example that “If I asked any of my students about what they learnt the most from the the classes I teach”
A frequent response they give, he says is: ‘Co-Founders talking in class about what they do.” It is therefore vital to have a good storyteller in the founding team. If not, it is better for one of the co-founders to develop this skill at the earliest.

Decision making:

Life doesn’t just happen. It is defined by the choices we make. Our lives are nothing a series of choices we’ve made so far. Life presents us with numerous crossroads. A lot of the times, they’re staring us right in front of our face and they’re really difficult, but we must make them.

Picture Courtesy: outlook business

Most of the time our decisions and choices are based on predictive calculations, and heuristics rooted in prediction. It’s an uncertain world out there for entrepreneurs. We as entrepreneurs should determine goals based on the resources in our possession. Entrepreneurship in an unconventional way.

Patience:

What would you do if someone gave you a marshmallow and told you that you could eat it right away, or wait for sometime and get two instead of one? Chances are you might be temped to eat the marshmallow right away, but you decide to wait… half of your journey to being a successful entrepreneur is already over. Delayed gratification or instant gratification. What are you going to choose? The popular experiment, known as the ‘marshmallow test’ performed by Stanford and administered to children, saw a direct co-relation between those who chose to wait and those who grew up to become successful individuals. There are no shortcuts on the road to entrepreneurial glory. See the bigger picture. Perceive who you want to be as a company down the lane, and make it happen.

Ethics:

Ethics is not just something that you choose or not choose to follow. It is non-negotiable. Don’t build your company on cheap antics and morality holes. It’s only going to backfire. It’s not worth to sell your integrity for a couple of extra dollars. Sleep like a baby every day and don’t worry about guilt. All you need to do is clean business.

Drive:

Don’t thrive to be successful. Thrive to be the best. Try be be the greatest. Aim for the stars and set a mark the world has yet to see. Be an entrepreneurial hero of your generation. Be a legacy for future companies to look up to. Be remembered for the unprecedented undertakings you performed as an entrepreneur. Use your drive to become the best you can be.

Follow these seven steps for a recipe to becoming a successful entrepreneur. In fact, this simple recipe can be applied to any area of life. It may sound easy on paper, but it takes a lot of time and practice to master these skills. Take it one skill at a time, and one day at a time, until you become the definition of a skillful entrepreneur. So what are you waiting for? On your marks, get set, GO!

nTalents.ai is a sales competency evaluation solution which uses online audio-video simulations to evaluate soft skills and customer facing attributes of salespeople. After an extensive research with professors at IIMB and other management institutes, they have decoded the key soft skills and behaviors which predict sales performance – and a consistent and accurate way to measure them.

The team of experienced psychologists, data scientists and human resource professionals have created a revolutionary product utilising over two decades of extensive research. The ‘Talent Discovery Framework’ developed by the team enables accurate and fast-tracked soft skill evaluations and the benchmarking of scores using machine learning algorithms ensures consistency of results. This method delivers profound insights because, unlike traditional tests, the nTalents.ai assessment measures the skills in a audio-visual simulated environment, rather than depending on lengthy survey-like questionnaires.

nTalents is on a mission to provide the growing corporate sector with top quality salespeople and help them sell more.

Series-5 Labs is a New age, Innovative, Data-based, provider of Actionable Content & Communication to Marketers. Advertisement industry spends a lot of money and energy into building “Awareness” and capturing “Interest”. However to provoke Desire and engage buyers to take an Action, advertisers have limited and ineffective tools as of today. Series-5 focusses on addressing this ineffectiveness through a Software Defined Marketing (SDM) platform. SDM platform would help advertisers to effectively monetize their spend through

Airim’s proprietary analytics module has helped marketers optimise their website content to be more sales-effective, discover demand for new products and analyze trends in user behavior that are tough to measure using conventional techniques.

Airim’s chatbots and surveying tools help marketers show targeted content to website visitors by asking them what they are looking for. This model has helped mid-sized businesses get 35% more purchases per month and 10X more sales inquiries than a conventional “Contact Us” form.

Started out with a motto to help a small village in Andhra Pradesh, Fabric Monde have now touched the lives of over 600 rural population. Taking into account that the Indian-Hand Made Industry demands supply chain innovation to solve the existing problems effectively, Fabric Monde’s One-Room Franchise model provides a parallel demand side channels to the customers. This strengthens the reach and cuts the prices of products when moved into the hands of the customers. Fabric Mode has evolved from a charity based organisation to a focussed skill development centre which outfitted about 400 women in the last 5 years.

Experienced Semiconductor Industry professionals came together to start this venture. Tenxer’s product “Blaze” is a combination of hardware and software that acts as an interface between a PC (through USB / WiFi / BT) to other hardware components / sub-systems through I2C and SPI protocols. The unique differentiator of this product is a Powerful Software ecosystem that helps develop applications rapidly even without extensive software experience. Blaze is a “plug and play” device with making it very robust and user-friendly.

In the light of student education in various states across India, Kriyative Education seek to to standardise school education and bestow the students with a platform for developing and improving their tuition with appropriate methodology named , KRIYA Methodology. Kriya SMART, a lab model, is another element in this organisation where the students are the students are enabled to make connection with real-life situations using activities done in Science and Math laboratories. KRIYA thrives to “ Inspire, Improve, Innovate.”

Medcync are a stellar crew of doctors and management professionals providing easy-to-understand, verified patient education content created keeping in mind various literacy levels to help save time, increase the doctor productivity, promote the practice and greatly reduce patient anxiety. MedCync enables the patients to identify the problem before its too late. Hence, MedCync plays a vital role in patient safety and entitles the healthcare professionals to shape their relationships with patients.

Bridging the skill gap of engineers, diploma and ITI students in the electrical, mechanical and civil sectors is something Tweak Skills stands for. It offers courses through a flipped classroom model, and imparts hands-on industrial training to the students as per current industrial needs. As a part of the programme, the startup also identifies students with niche skills and provides training in their domains of interest with the help of data science. To deliver quality content, an industry-oriented training curriculum and employment opportunities for the students, Tweak Skills has made strategic partnerships with Builders Association of India (BAI), MSME, Construction Skill Development Council of India (CSDCI), National Institute of Technology (NIT-R), IIMC-Innovation and IIMB-NSRCEL.

Tech Tailor is a pioneering platform for fabricating custom-fitted clothing and tailoring services for consumers anytime online. Customers are enabled to personalise their tailoring needs with aid of Tech Tailor with vast style elements and garment fitting.

ScienceHopper Education Private Limited provides experiential science education services to school children. Our aim is to encourage the spirit of curiosity and questioning in the minds of the young ones and we achieve this by teaching Science in a Hands-on way. We help children imbibe the scientific method by following the scientific inquiry process – hypothesize, experiment, observe and conclude. Our method is hands-on, exciting and fun filled and we engage students through experiments and activities.Our service ‘Lab in the Classroom’ caters to children from Grade 3 to Grade 10. Our program is integrated with the school timetable and aligned to the school syllabus. We are an end-end solution provider. We provide content, kits, a science coach for each experiment and also assessments at the end of the year.

Gamatics is India’s largest store for competitive swimwear and coaching instrumentation for serious swimmers. Gamatics has stupendous vary and stock holding of competitive FINA approved race suits in India. They are incorporated with the right infrastructure to support the athletes in various mean such as physiotherapy, injury care, nutritionist consultation. Gamatics reaches out to each of its athletes by the virtue of Sports Analytics ; performance analysis, fan base analysis and they manage to store all the athlete information at a centralised location. We believe streamlining varied aspects in sports trade and take the most effective out of the sports system. We thrive to be “GO TO” organisation for each and every athlete in India for any support they have towards meeting the excellence they’re dreaming of.

Company Name: TAPON TECH SOLUTIONSYear of Graduation: June 2016Profile:

Technology is constantly evolving at a rapid pace, and businesses need to adopt it just as quickly in order to remain ahead of their competitiors. TapOn Tech Solutions desires to become a trusted technology partner for all your technology needs, which may include mobility applications and migration to Cloud and IoT. With over 60 years of software industry experience, the founders of TapOn Tech Solutions are experts in managing large and complicated projects. Additionally, they are supported by a young and enthusiastic team of software professionals who are ready to tackle any new challenges.

Company Name: SCHOOL OF FISH TECHNOLOGIESYear of Graduation: April 2016Profile:

School of Fish Technologies’ isScheme enables companies to engage with their retailers by enabling a direct communication between the manufacturer-retailer in the last-mile supply chain.The current supply chain systems lack transparency and effective communication channels. With isScheme, manufacturers can feature their products and trade promotions on isScheme. Retailers browse through the products, search, check the schemes, place orders at their convenience. The retailers can provide feedback to the manufacturers. Manufacturers can communicate to thousands of retailers at a click of button.

Get Closer is new establishment that spotlights on CSR Management and usage. They plan to chip away at more CSR related undertakings as this lines up with their craving to do work that has any kind of influence. Workers will be more roused, gainful, and faithful, along these lines decreasing the expenses of enrolment and preparing. A strong, trusted brand and a positive notoriety will make it simpler for customers to draw in top ability. Several services provided by Get Closer are planning , initiating and execute CSR programs, creative team, a PR team, CSR Reporting.

A simple online library of exceptional photographs from skilled artists. Pix My Wall enables the photographers to share content online and immaculately print and framed to beautify a living space. PixMyWall fervently intends to create innumerable opportunities for every photographer to ensure that they are motivated at every step ahead in the future to improve the quality of pictures.

5 Shells develops interactive content delivering training experiences based on Indigenously Created Games. This company is inspired from the famous Indian game of Pachessi or Chaupad in which small sea shells are used instead of dice.

Amagi is the world’s initially cloud-based oversaw communicate benefits and focused on publicising arrangements organisation. Amagi brings straightforwardness, propelled computerisation, and straightforwardness to the whole communicate operation, be it for conventional TV or next generation multiscreen stages. Amagi has arrangements in more than 40 nations, empowering TV systems to dispatch, work, and adapt diverts anyplace on the planet.

At Brizz Tv, the founders have vitally re-designed the for a new age by opening it up for new forms of media, new ad formats and a whole new set of advertisers which is financially rewarding to consumers, service providers and the broadcasters. Brizz Tv have a patent pending deployed tv platform that interfaces TV networks with the world wide web. This introduces the best of the internet to TV homes without any internet connection. Brizz Tv’s distinct products include ‘ Social conversations of TV Shows’, ‘Freemium movies’, ‘Tv App Store’ and iExam, which is India’s first national coaching centre on TV.

Company Name: Idea device technologiesYear of Graduation: May 2011Profile:

This company provides cost effective, non-restrictive, and secure automation solutions for IT and data center operations. One of their products, Epilson, is an automation platform that can be used to convert manual IT or data center operations into automated ones.

Mango Technologies are leading developer of software system for mobile phones. we tend to develop complete solutions for handsets and worked across the complete spectrum of devices-from low value handsets to smart-phones. we’ve developed an entire application framework for mobile phones, and that was specifically targeted at harnessing the complete potential of low value 2G to 3G phones. We are a quick growing & continuously- evolving company providing economical, innovative computer code solutions, and this can be mirrored within the Mango Culture.

Mapunity is a social network for various cities, a platform which the citizens can utilise to create and share public information and help solve public problems to help the city or a neighbourhood. Mapunity has fabricated an open stage to on-board contributions from a scope of sensors, which makes it simple for clients and offices chiefs to coordinate and envision information from various gadgets, and to settle on educated choices. Mobile apps from Manupity that support and contribute to the better livelihood of the citizens in a city are:

Persept Solar offers “Solar Power as a Service” to Indian Industries and commercial establishments by utilising the available rooftop space for captive generation and consumption. In addition Persept Solar offers consultancy services on “Energy Security with Renewable Energy” covering state specific policy regulatory framework, financial commercial technical analysis, terms in power purchase agreement and construction of solar PV plants.

Red Force Labs is a online security research and products company focusing on bringing to market solutions that help verify identities and transactions reliably from any computing device be it owned or shared. (Eg; OTP for online financial services like Online Banking, Online Trading etc.) For the last three years we have been researching the vulnerabilities that plague the internet, its modus operandi and building technologies that help mitigate, fortify networks and thus avert these attacks.

Ttatva Innovations works towards bringing innovative solution ideas that uses through use of “technology for business”. All solutions are built on “t-platform” which makes leveraging niche technologies like NFC, face recognition, and context based computing ready for the usage from their business solutions.

“Yoga is process of elevating oneself through calming down the mind”. Turtle Yogi endeavours to provide support and teaching to all aspects of Yoga. Turtle yogi is a relationship motivated during the time spent change that a tortoise experiences when it pulls back its faculties inwards, i.e.practising Pratyahara, which is the fifth of the eight appendages of established yoga that Patanjali portrays in the Yoga Sutra. Turning inwards is a procedure of changing from a restricted state to a more developed one is what Meghana Joshi, the founder, believes in.

Company Name: Vayavya LabsYear of Graduation: September 2010Profile:

Vayavya Labs is an Electronic System Level (ESL) Design start-up firm. They re-define the Hardware-Software co-design methodology to drive down the costs, time, and effort, involved in System-on-Chip(SoC)/ASIC roll out. They license their patented tools and technology to semiconductor, system design, and operating system & tools. They also offer solutions, system consultancy, embedded services to semiconductor companies operating in the multimedia space.

Company Name: Voice tech solutionsYear of Graduation: October 2006Profile:

Voice tech solutions works in the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) domain. They provide an unique value proposition to meet the explosive demands of scalable (IVR) with VoIP capabilities. Voicetech solutions’ offshore developement model produces cost-effective solutions to cater to the needs of existing and emerging IVR markets across the globe.

Zingreel is an elite online streaming service which provides non-resident Indian movie enthusiasts an exciting opportunity to watch movies online licensed in HD quality. Zingreel lays out content homeowners a chance to require their content to international audiences on a similar day of their native theatre unharness and connect with extremely engaged customers. At Zingreel, they tend to continuously search for opportunities to supply one thing new and valuable to our members. we tend to square measure centred on user convenience and attempt to make the most effective potential on-line video expertise.

Zoojoo.be is a game based social wellness platform that leverages on the tremendous power of the trusted social network at our workplace to motivate employees to form healthier habits. Its a platform that brings everyone together. Employees compete with each other to overcome their weekly health challenges. Challenges are customised for each user making the platform extremely adaptive. You can measure and control the impact of wellness on top line parameters like productivity, stress levels etc.

Company Name: PRISTECH TECHNOLOGIES PVT Ltd.Year of Graduation: September 2015Profile:

Pristech is an analytics company that helps in adopting the right strategic decisions. We utilise the best analytics tools and methods like predictive analysis to transform information and patterns in structured, unstructured and streams of data into meaningful messages and trends. We resolve few of the burning issues that cause stagnation in business and consumer buying behaviour by delivering optimised cost effective solutions and value for money.

Chippersage provides thorough solutions for english fluency. We believe that fluency in English language can help acquire academic and vocational excellence. We’ve carefully crafted our modules to ensure Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing skills, all the aspects required for language fluency, are nurtured and strengthened. We, at Chippersage, are committed to delivering learning solutions and tools for all learners irrespective of age and proficiency levels.

VenKam’s Call4Kare is a Messaging Device, which when Record button(RED) is pressed records and stores the voice message. When Call button(GREEN) is pressed, recorded message is played to pre-stored mobile numbers.

Can be used by:

Elders,Children, Differently abled people, Special Children.

Emergency device in cars and automobiles to reach help during accidents.

Help-line device with an eco-system for apps such as Ola, Uber, Big Basket, etc – Liaison between people who are not tech savvy and digital applications.

Company Name: DemitasseProfile:

deMITasse Energies designs and manufactures a new generation of engine that generates power extremely efficiently, reliably and inexpensively, with zero emissions. The power generated, as clean reliable electricity, enables the users to achieve peak performance and higher plant efficiencies with drastically reduced energy spendings, and no “power anxiety”. Energy intensive industries such as the telecom, transportation & shipping, chemical and power industry are our primary targets.

Jivabhumi (www.jivabhumi.com) is a community supportedsocial enterprise connecting conscious consumers and local farmers via the food. We are on a mission to provide “Better Livelihood for Farmers and Safe food for Consumers”. We are simplifying the food supply and retail chain by eliminating the complexities of the supply chain and connecting farmers directly to consumers via our online technology platform

AlmaNourisher, child nutrition and wellness firm, bridges the nutrition gap in children by partnering with schools and pre-schools. Right nutrition during childhood leads to healthy physical, social and psychological well-being of a child.

Hence, our nutrition solution aims to structure the school nutrition programs, by addressing the critical nutrition needs in children that help to raise healthy eaters and co-create a nourished environment. It is therefore committed in getting schools, parents and children to engage in a healthy lifestyle.

SKILLFINITY is an Ed-Tech company committed to build engineering talent for automotive software companies. The company is a brainchild of a team with strong background in automotive software engineering. Skill development programs from SKILLFINITY are designed to be long, immersive and are delivered in a blended model with online and classroom sessions ensuring effective learning to transform the aspiring engineer to an automotive engineering talent. SKILLFINITY provides cost advantage to automotive companies by reducing their recruitment and skill development efforts. SKILLFINITY brings engineering talent with right mindset and automotive companies together enabling increase in productivity and product quality.

The Climber is an EdTech company that helps students make informed Career choices through mentorship. Our main program, MyCaptain, where young achievers mentor students with the same field of interest. MyCaptain is recognised by the United Nations SDSN as one of the top 50 Youth led solutions in the World.